by Annie Murray
As she drew closer she saw someone else climb up out of the boat, but it wasn’t Gary. A dog appeared on the tow path as well, a black, solid thing with pointed ears. Gary appeared a moment later, and she heard them talking, Gary raising his hand, ‘T’ra then!’ and the other man setting off towards her. The dog, seeming excited, tried to follow and Gary shouted, ‘Oi! Rocket!’ The dog turned back immediately, as if jerked by a string.
As the man walked past her, Evie saw a solid-looking bloke with a nice face, except for a wonky nose that must have once been broken, hands pushed down into the pockets of a black overcoat. He gave her a nod as he passed.
Gary and Carl weren’t paying any attention to her coming along the path. They had both lit up cigarettes and were puffing away to the morning, looking out over the water. Gary had a red mug in his other hand. But the dog began to bark shrilly and started running towards her. The two men turned and stared.
Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, ‘Gary?’
They were pleased to see her, pleased as puppies. Carl, a grin all over his big face, came up and flung his arms round her. ‘Evie!’ he said, half swamping her. Then she was caught in Gary’s arms, shocked by how bony he was, how much he stank.
‘Said I’d come, didn’t I?’ she said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Just took me a while, that’s all.’
‘I dain’t think you were coming,’ he said. ‘I mean, when I saw yer . . . It were months ago now, weren’t it?’
She noticed even more than before how haltingly he spoke. In her mind she had turned him back into the old Gary, the nippy lad of the Ladywood lanes and entries, the Gary of her childhood. Now, he seemed stranger than she remembered. Close up, Gary’s face – his thirty-year-old-man face, surrounded by tousled, muddy-coloured hair, was lined and prematurely aged. His grin was as gappy as she remembered. His specs were now held on by a wonky combination of sellotape and a bit of elastic round the back of his head.
The dog was trying to jump at her and Carl grabbed it, a grin all across his face. ‘No, Rocket, there’s a good girl. Stay down.’ Unlike Gary, he still seemed to have all his front teeth.
‘I’ve been a bit . . .’ Evie said. She stumbled, not knowing what to say.
‘D’you like our butty boat then?’ Gary nodded at it. It was a working narrowboat – or had been – with a small cabin and a long cargo area at the front, covered by a rotten-looking tarpaulin. On the side of the cabin, in paint so bleached and cracked it was all chipping off, she read, ‘Fellows, Moreton & Clayton’. And below, ‘Pearl’.
‘I know ’er’s a bit of a wreck. I got ’er for a song,’ he said. ‘Well, it was Carl bought her, really.’ He patted the cabin fondly. Evie wondered if he had been drinking, his speech was so slurred. She couldn’t smell anything on his breath except rotten teeth. But she had a fearful sense that something was very wrong. She was surprised that Carl seemed to be the one earning the money. But what could she say? ‘But she’s our home, ain’t ’er, Carl?’
‘You always liked to have your own little place, didn’t you, Gary?’ Evie said. She thought of him in the old air-raid shelter, the safe nests he used to create for himself.
‘Wanna cuppa tea now you’re here?’ he asked, seeming eager to give hospitality. ‘Kettle’s hot.’ He stepped onto the boat.
‘Oh yes,’ Evie said. Her stomach ached with emptiness. She would gradually have to break it to Gary that she needed more of him than just a cup of tea.
‘I can cut yer a piece an’ all if yer like?’ he offered, poking his head out of the cabin.
‘Thanks,’ she said. Her eyes filled with tears suddenly and she saw Carl watching her.
‘Don’t cry, Evie,’ he said. He came to her, in his parka, the ragged ends of a grey jumper poking out of the sleeves, and wrapped his arms round her. That was the undoing of her. She broke down and sobbed, her head pressed against Carl’s chest.
‘But I can’t live here – there’s no room,’ she said, half laughing as she looked round. The three of them were squeezed into the boat’s cabin, the stove filling the place with warmth. But it was so small, with the tiny flap table pulled down, crowded with mugs, the remains of a packet of sugar, a milk bottle, a half-sawn-up loaf of bread. What with that and the stove, there was barely room to move. The place had not been decorated inside for many years. It was full of peeling paint and the floor was black with coal dust and dirt. She could already feel a desire to sweep and clean.
‘Yeah, there is,’ Gary said. ‘Course there is.’ He hesitated, as if having doubts, and glanced at Carl. ‘For a bit, any road.’ She watched him. What was up with him? He seemed aged and odd. Odder. Slowed down. But he smiled at her then, his old, crinkly smile. ‘Carl and me can take turns – kip down on the floor. You can sleep here.’ He patted the bench he was sitting on beside the wall. Whole families’ve lived in these – we’ll manage!’
Evie thought, he wants a woman here – someone to look after them, to cook and clean. And because she was trying not to face things, wanted time, she was tempted to agree to it.
‘Well, it’s nice of you,’ she said, even though this was why she had come, hoping. ‘Just for a bit – ’til I get back on my feet?’
Gary took a sip of his tea and looked closely at her. ‘What’s up, Evie? What’s happened to yer, eh?’
There was no point in hiding anything. She told the two of them, short and bitter, what had happened to her. Jack, Canada, Mom, the kids, the hospital.
Gary sat back and blew out through his lips. ‘Blimey, Eves, that’s . . . that’s bad, that is.’ He shook his head, took a drag on his cigarette. His eyes rolled up into his head for a moment, disconcerting her. Then he was back with them. ‘But you’re going back to get yer kids, ain’t yer?’
‘I . . .’
‘I mean . . .’ Gary surged on with sudden force. ‘If our mom, God rest her, had gone off . . . instead of passing away like she did . . .’ He stopped to cough, his chest rattling. ‘I’d’ve done anything to see her and get her back. We would’ve – wouldn’t we, Carl? We’d’ve gone to the ends of the earth.’
Seeing Carl nodding earnestly, Evie welled up again. Gary’s words tore at her inside.
‘I will . . . I want to – course I do. I just . . . don’t know if they want me . . .’ Tears wet her cheeks and dropped into her mug of sugary, tan-coloured tea.
‘Course they do,’ Gary said. His sweetness made her cry all the more. ‘All kids want their mom, don’t they?’
‘I just need to get myself together . . .’ she sobbed.
‘Eh, it’s all right, wench.’ Gary put his arm round her. She smelt a gust of his breath, the smell of rotten teeth and something else, an odd chemical smell. ‘Course you can stay. We’re mates, old mates, eh? Stay as long as you want.’
Fifty-Seven
To Evie’s astonishment, Carl produced a pack of bacon out of a cupboard.
‘Want a butty, Evie?’
‘Ooh, yeah! I didn’t think you’d have anything like that!’ She had not expected any sort of organization here with these two; she had imagined she would have to do it all.
She realized she was ravenously hungry. The sun was higher now, brightening everything, and with that and the thought of breakfast, her spirits lifted. It was Gary who plonked a battered frying pan onto the stove. The dog lay beside him, attentive to the possibility of food.
‘Gotta eat. Carl buys stuff on his way home – he’s outside all day. Got to keep him going.’
Evie watched, surprised. She had assumed that Gary’s care of Carl was a one-way street, but Carl was the one who was off to work. Soon the delicious smell of frying bacon filled the cabin.
She tried asking Carl a bit about his job, but did not get much out of him other than, ‘Yeah, s’all right.’ He ate two enormous sandwiches, bacon wadged between doorsteps of bread, drank another pint of tea and lumbered away to get the bus to his job at Longbridge.
‘T’ra, Evie,’ he said in his sweet way as he set
off. ‘See you later.’
Evie ate her butty, squeezed into the cabin with Gary. The bacon was crisp and fresh. Gary passed her the bottle of ketchup.
‘God, Gary, this is the best thing I’ve tasted in ages.’ Already she was feeling better.
Gary smiled, mouth too full to answer. The dog lay at their feet whimpering now and then to remind them not to forget her. Gary threw her scraps of gristle and bread.
She looked across at him. ‘How long’ve you been living down here then?’
‘Oh, you know . . .’ His eyes wandered. He seemed distracted; he drifted, then returned to the conversation. ‘A while. Since . . . you know . . .’ He trailed off.
‘I ran into Ron.’ Gary looked blank. ‘You know, Ron, your brother. I’d just got back from Canada and I went to the old end. My God, I couldn’t tell if I was coming or going – there’s hardly anything left! Anyway, Ron was along there. Said he didn’t know where you were.’
Gary shrugged. ‘Carl sees Paul and Ron.’
She was about to ask after all the Knight brothers, but Gary didn’t seem very keen to talk about them.
‘I could help you clean up,’ she said, full of sudden energy after the food and sweet tea. ‘You could do with a woman’s touch in here, Gary. It’s a bit of a mess.’
Again, a shrug as he rolled a cigarette. His hands shook. They were rough and gnarled, the fingernails filthy.
‘You not working then?’
‘Me? Oh . . . yeah,’ he said. ‘Off and on. The buildings – factories, sometimes. I don’t like being stuck inside, though. Not after . . .’
‘After what?’
Gary didn’t answer. ‘We get by,’ he said. He seemed restless. With an upward jerk of his head he said sharply, ‘I’m not a druggie, yer know.’
‘I never said you were.’ She had thought it, though, wondered what could have made him look such a wreck.
Lighting the cigarette, Gary nodded towards the steps. ‘Let’s go up, eh?’
It was a still, perfect winter morning, the murky ripples silvered by the sunlight. Though it was chilly, it felt good to be out. The cut, no longer the thoroughfare it had once been, was quiet and the towpath saw very few passers-by during the morning, except a couple of people with dogs and a middle-aged bloke in a shabby parka who wandered past, then back, as if looking for something, before disappearing.
For a few hours it was idyllic. Evie relished the feeling of being free, being back with her old friend, as if two ragged ends in her life had re-joined. It was like a dream world, away from everything. All she wanted was to stay here, fold her problems away. Just for a while.
They perched on the edge of the roof, shoulder to shoulder, and finished their mugs of tea. She looked at Gary’s skinny legs drawn up onto the roof beside her in his ragged black trousers. She thought of the two of them, crouched in the shelter together, hearing the comforting little noises of Mr Waring’s hens. She was warmed by the familiarity of him after all this time. She could smell him even out here – long-unwashed clothes, his breath, now laden with fag smoke. But then he always did stink as a kid, she thought. Poor little sod. And she’d not been much better herself.
She half wanted to talk about all of it – the past, Pete Rylance’s death and how Gary had been afterwards. She wanted to say sorry for not sticking around. Julie . . . That’s where she had been, while he was lost in his grief – sucked down into her own. Gary knew none of that and she said nothing. She had told Dr Rose, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it now. Not that.
Behind them on the cabin roof was an old metal bucket, some logs, scraps of this and that, rough bits of wood and rags. At the far end nearest the hold, a rusty bike clung on somehow, half over the edge. In the bright light, the derelict state of Pearl was much clearer to see. The painted wood of the cabin was so cracked and dry that it looked as if you could just pull it apart. It seemed amazing that she was still afloat. The tarpaulin covering the hold was torn in places.
‘What you got in there then, Gary?’ she asked.
‘Oh, nothing much,’ he said. He twisted his neck, seeming edgy. ‘This and that. Just junk.’
She could believe it. She flung the tea dregs into the cut and got up, suddenly full of energy. ‘How about we clean up a bit then, if I’m going to stay here?’ She frowned. ‘Where d’you get your water from?’
Gary eyed the cut.
‘I mean for drinking, you prat.’
‘Oh, a way away. Carl’ll get some later. There’s a garage lets us fill up. There’s still a bit left inside – in the blue container.’
‘You could pull me up a bucketful for cleaning. It hasn’t got a hole in, I hope? And’ve you got anything I can use – cloths?’ Even as she asked, she could see this would be hopeless. She straightened up. ‘D’you ever have a bath or anything?’
‘Nah.’ He shrugged and nodded towards the front of the boat. ‘I can find yer an old rag.’
Evie grinned. She was desperate to be busy suddenly, to be in this lovely morning – just for a while – doing anything except think about what she, in her own life, had to do next.
With buckets of water from the cut and the old rag Gary had presented her with – the remains of an old shirt minus the sleeves – she did the best she could, sloshing water around in the cabin and wiping it down. It made her feel better even if it did not look very much cleaner than before she started. That would take a miracle. Oh well, one thing at a time. While she was working, Gary went off somewhere, the dog following him. It shadowed him everywhere. Later he came back with more bread, some margarine and a packet of sausages. He seemed very on edge.
‘You didn’t go in there, did yer?’ he asked tetchily, looking towards the hold. ‘You dain’t touch anything?’
‘No. I’ve had my work cut out back here without starting on that. Why? What you got in there?’
‘Oh . . . just junk. Here, bought you this,’ he said, standing on the bank, holding up to her a bottle of the cheapest washing-up liquid.
‘Oh, ta.’ She was warm and sweaty from her exertions, even if they did feel a bit hopeless. ‘Well, that’s something. You didn’t think to get any cloths or anything?’
Gary’s eyes wandered. She looked down at him. What a pathetic figure he looked, bone thin in his sagging clothes, the elastic holding his glasses on pushing up his hair at the back. She felt a mixture of tenderness and impatience. However bad a state Gary used to be in, she remembered him being quicker off the mark than now. He seemed slurred, like someone trying to move with the brakes on. It reminded her of the way the women were after ECT, the shocks which, thank God, Dr Rose did not want to give to her.
‘Well, I s’pose the soap’s better than nothing. I’ve got some money. I’ll give you a bit – for my keep.’
Later they ate bread and marg and a couple of sausages, poured water from the blue plastic container to boil for more tea, and sat out once more. It felt a happy thing, just thinking about nothing but the present – like being on holiday. She cut her mind loose from everything else. Just one more day and then she would face everything again . . . She still felt very strange being outside, free from walls, from always being watched. She said so to Gary.
‘I know,’ he said, chewing. ‘I still feel like that, after being in . . .’ He jerked his head in a vague way.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know . . .’ Another jerk of the head.
‘The hospital?’
‘Nah, the Green.’ He swallowed. ‘Her Majesty’s cowing Pleasure.’
‘Oh Gary! When? What for?’
He looked as if he wasn’t going to say anything, and took refuge in his roll-ups, the slow ritual with his unsteady fingers. It took him so long that she almost offered to do it for him.
‘I was nicked in the bogs, in town – over by the markets. Years back now. Been in twice.’
She stared at him. It took a minute to make sense of what he was saying.
She knew about him real
ly – course she did. That he had never wanted her, or any other girl. He had wanted Peter Rylance, had been felled by grief when Peter died. But she had never said it to herself before, head on, in all these years. Homosexual. Queer. She had known and not known all at once. Only then she wondered about the man who had been leaving the boat when she first arrived.
‘Oh Gary.’
He shook his head. ‘I was more worried about Carl than anything while I was in. I couldn’t pay the fines, see.’
‘Is that when you came down here?’
‘Well, in the end – I ain’t been here that long. I was living in town. She’s his really, see.’ He patted the rotten wood of the boat. ‘He was the one earning. And he wanted me to come with him. And being in a house sets me off. I like it out here.’ He looked round at her, asking with a shamed expression, ‘You got any . . . you know . . . stuff from the hospital? Pills, like?’
‘No,’ she lied. She was coming off them, she vowed. They slowed her right down. But she certainly wasn’t going to give them to Gary. ‘Any road, you said you never did anything?’
Gary nodded, as if to say he knew she was holding back from him. ‘Well, not the hard stuff.’ He flashed her his grin. ‘Right cowing pair, ain’t we?’
She looked out across the water. There were a few reeds, with some load of muck caught up in them – a tangle of filthy twine and litter. A moorhen paddled sadly round it.
‘I hope there’s another life after this one,’ she said, eyes on the lone bird. ‘I want everything different – different family, different mom. I want to know what it’s like . . . for things to be nice.’
For a moment Gary flung his arm round her shoulder and squeezed her. ‘You’re all right, wench. Whatever yer cowing family’s like.’
Tears rose in her eyes. ‘Not much of a mom, I’m not, Gary. Not now. Don’t s’pose they remember who I am hardly.’
